


Love Lost

by RoseByAnyOtherName17



Series: The Lion, the Wolf and the Dragon [19]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Angst, Fear, Gen, Reunions, Strategy & Tactics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-04
Updated: 2018-07-04
Packaged: 2019-06-05 10:50:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,145
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15169085
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RoseByAnyOtherName17/pseuds/RoseByAnyOtherName17
Summary: Jon was sorely tempted to put Littlefinger on the block and be done with it. The man knew, if his telltale smirk meant anything.





	Love Lost

**Author's Note:**

> Next part guys. Hope y'all enjoy :)
> 
> title comes from the song by Temper Trap

With Petyr Baelish out of the way, Robin proved to be much more receptive to the northerners. Well, to Sansa in particular, but that came as no surprise to anyone. He loved the gruesome stories of what the White Walkers did to people, the reanimation of their corpses, and he loved the idea of fighting them even more. “Uncle Petyr will be a hero!” he declared. Jon doubted that, but the boy was impressionable, so he let Robin think what he wanted. It didn’t hurt anyone.

 

Convincing Littlefinger to go was another matter entirely. That particular conversation had been uncomfortable, not the least because of how he was looking at Sansa the whole time. Jon was sorely tempted to put him on the block and be done with it. Lord Baelish knew, if the telltale smirk on his face was any indication. He had done his best to argue that he was needed at Winterfell, that his men were inexperienced for the Wall.

 

“That’s interesting,” Sansa said, “because, having defended the Eerie for so long, it seems that your men would be most comfortable in that environment. The cold, the wind, even the air at that height is thinner…”

 

Littlefinger shifted in his seat a little uncomfortably. “Lady Sansa, I may be better suited here, to counsel you if Cersei Lannister makes a move against the North.”

 

Jon had always been a little afraid of the way Sansa could cock an eyebrow, probably because it reminded him of Catelyn Stark. It was refreshing to see the disapproving look directed at someone else. “Lord Baelish, you forget that Cersei spent a lot of time counseling me herself, in order to be Joffrey’s queen. I know her mind as well as anyone. I was there to watch the beginnings of her descent into madness.”

 

“I might remind you that it was I who rescued you from her—”

 

“Yes, you did, and for that I’m grateful,” Sansa allowed. “However, some of that gratitude dissipated somewhat when you sold me to the Boltons and let Ramsey have me as his plaything. And returned tenfold when you declared for the North,” she continued when Littlefinger opened his mouth to speak, “which leaves us here. You’ve chosen to become a vassal of the Starks, and Jon and I have spoken with the Lord Commander at the Wall and decided that you and your men will be a great contribution to the Watch.”

 

“Not permanently, of course,” Jon added. “When the wars are over, I suspect you’ll wish to return to the Vale.”

 

They had him caught and Littlefinger knew it. “But what of Robin?” he said finally. “He can’t survive up there. He can barely leave the castle here.”

 

“Well, he’ll remain, of course,” Sansa told him, like it was the most obvious thing in the world. “His health is as important to us as it is to you. He is my cousin.”

 

And that was that. Littlefinger departed for Castle Black a few days later with the rest of his forces, and a raven was sent to Daenerys informing her of the move (and subtly hinting that the threat had been removed, for now).

 

Of course, nothing could be that easy.

 

The Brotherhood Without Banners showed up the very next morning, standing at the gates with a mysteriously hooded woman at their center. They were a ragged bunch, far from the stories Jon had heard a couple years before. Their vigilantism in the Riverlands had been legendary after Robert Baratheon’s death. These were just men, somewhat starved and looking for shelter before they could offer anything else. Jon and Sansa welcomed them, especially after Thoros of Myr mentioned meeting Arya on the road. He talked about her ferocity even as a young girl, half scared out of her mind and just trying to survive. “She and that boy of hers found each other,” he mentioned absently over dinner. “Gendry, his name was.”

 

Jon was surprised. “She told us about him. I thought he was with you?”

 

Thoros looked guilty. “He left when we wouldn’t search for your sister after…after your uncle’s wedding,” he said apologetically, looking at Sansa. “We thought she must have died by then. He thought otherwise.”

 

“He was right,” Sansa agreed. “Smart man.”

 

The veiled woman wasn’t eating and hadn’t removed her cloak, even once inside. Jon couldn’t get a good look at her face, but when the light glinted off her eyes a feeling of dread filled his stomach. “Who are you?” he asked her quietly. She slowly turned her head to him from Sansa, who hadn’t paid the woman any mind. Jon had seen a lot of things, terrible things, dead men walking even as their skin sloughed off their bones, but their eyes had all been icy blue. Hers were colorless, empty. At least the army of the dead were angry, even if that anger came from the White Walkers controlling them.

 

When she didn’t answer, he asked again deliberately, a little louder, enough to draw Sansa’s attention now. “Who are you?”

 

Thoros spoke up hurriedly. “You must forgive Lady Stoneheart; she isn’t much of a talker.”

 

Jon heard a sharp intake of breath from Sansa. Her gaze was locked on the woman’s eyes now too. “Jon,” Sansa said in a low voice.

 

Most of the Brotherhood looked uncomfortable now. “Perhaps we should talk about this somewhere else,” Thoros murmured.

 

“Talk about _what_?” Jon demanded, just as quiet so as not to draw too much attention from the Northern lords. “It’s a simple question, My Lady, _who are you_?”

 

“My Lord – Your Grace – this is not the time or place,” Thoros insisted. “Please.”

 

Jon opened his mouth to keep arguing, attention be damned, but Sansa let out a choked, tiny sob and everything went still. The woman – Lady Stoneheart – had turned her gaze to Sansa once more, and enough of the shadows were thrown off of her face for Jon to see a sharp, pale cheekbone. He didn’t understand, couldn’t understand, but whatever it was that he wasn’t seeing, Sansa was. And it was enough to make her face crumple.

 

“What. Did you. Do?” she said in a deadly low voice, one Jon hadn’t heard from her before. The dread pooling in his gut turned to fear.

 

Thoros looked lost for words, but the lady’s hand came to her throat and she rasped out, “ _Sansa._ ” Jon’s heart dropped to his toes, the bread taste in his mouth turned to sawdust, and if it weren’t for his quick hand on her arm, Sansa would have lunged across the table right then. He moved it to grasp her shoulder warningly, or in reassurance. He couldn’t tell anymore, because that voice belonged to a dead woman.

 

Sansa rarely ever lost control. When they met again at Castle Black, she had only taken a few moments to bury her face in his shoulder before composing herself enough to go elsewhere, where she resumed their embrace out of sight of others. The night before battling the Boltons, she had become angry with Jon and promised she would die before going back to Ramsey. Even when Arya returned to them, she had withheld her tears until the dead of night, the three of them huddled together on what had been Mother and Father’s enormous bed. As children, she was so dismissive of Jon that he hardly ever saw an emotion out of her.

 

Now though…he watched shock, fury, denial, devastating sadness flit across her face one after another, unable to settle. She hardly breathed, until her chest suddenly heaved like she couldn’t get any air. Tears welled in her eyes, her hands clenched into fists, her entire body was wound tight. He briefly wondered if she would snap right there, in the hall in front of every man there. He was ready to wrap an arm around her shoulders, to pull her face into his neck and hide her weakness, because she hated being weak as much as Arya did, even if their weaknesses were completely different.

 

But all at once she settled, still taut as a bowstring, but utterly still and void of emotion. “Come,” she murmured to Thoros. “You’re going to tell us what this is. Now.”

 

The remaining Brotherhood stood once they saw their leader leave, but Thoros waved them back and they returned to their meal at once, clearly unconcerned with anything other than the meal in front of them. Sansa led the way to the same room where Arya had told them of her life on the run. Jon watched her carefully, a step away if she needed him, but she only stared into the fire for a long second before whirling around abruptly. “Remove your hood,” she commanded of the Lady Stoneheart.

 

She did so, and Jon felt cold wash over him at the sight of Catelyn Stark.

 

As a boy, she had both frightened and angered him. His earliest memory was calling her “mum” and the slap of her hand that immediately followed. “I am not your mother, and you are not my son,” she told him coldly. As he grew older, and learned what he was, he did his best to avoid her at all costs. Ned Stark had loved him like his other children, but his lady wife wanted nothing to do with the bastard brought home at the end of the war, and so Jon stayed away. There was always a slow burning rage in his stomach. It was not his fault that he was not her son. He did not choose to be born to another woman. All he wanted was for a family to love him, but he only really got that in Robb and Arya and Bran. Sansa looked upon him with disdain, too close to her mother to think anything else, and Rickon was just a baby.

 

This was a mere shadow of Catelyn Stark though, not the beautiful, terrifying woman who had made him feel so inferior as a child. Her cheeks were sunken in, eyes gaunt, formerly red hair streaked with white and thin, brittle. She was stiff with the death that must have held her for days before she was brought back. Jon managed to escape that stiffness because of the cold that preserved his own corpse, but Lady Catelyn had died in the Riverlands before even the first hint of winter touched the south. The only sign of life in her was her dully shining eyes, looking at Sansa with something close to warmth, or the closest a dead woman could get.

 

But Sansa did not hold love in her eyes. Her face held no expression at all, which Jon had long since come to understand that it meant she was breaking inside. He may have held no love for Catelyn Stark, but a wave of sympathy crashed through him for his sister. Why the world could not stop hurting them, he didn’t know. And this was a hurt he couldn’t protect her from.

 

Sansa stared at Lady Stoneheart for a long time, and eventually stepped closer to touch her papery skin. Her fingers trailed along the slash of her throat. “The Freys,” Sansa said tonelessly. She met the lady’s eyes. “Did you kill them?”

 

The ghost of Catelyn Stark pressed her own hand to Sansa’s, closing the gash enough for her to croak, “ _Arya._ ”

 

Sansa didn’t flinch away, just stood with her hand wrapped around her mother’s neck like she couldn’t let go. “We thought she must have,” she said quietly, “but we couldn’t be sure.”

 

Thoros cleared his throat. “She and her boy told us everything when we met,” he clarified. “They were heading back to Riverrun, presumably from the Twins.”

 

“It was foolish of her,” Jon said. “So many things could have gone wrong.”

 

“We were actually on our way there to eliminate them ourselves,” Thoros admitted, “or at least deplete what we could of them. We stopped by the stronghold on our way; the bodies were removed, but the bloodstains…whatever poison she used, it did not let them die painlessly.”

 

The lady, for all she seemed to lack emotion, looked strangely satisfied at those words. Jon shivered, grateful that she had not turned her gaze onto him. It was Sansa who spoke up. “Good,” she said. “Arya told us what she saw, at the wedding. They deserved what they got, every moment.”

 

Lady Stoneheart lifted a hand and pressed it to Sansa’s cheek. She said nothing more, but Jon could see something like relief in her face. It lent him no love for the woman who hated him for existing, but he thought maybe that part of her was still human, if she could care for her daughter this way.

 

After all, he could never quite shake the darkness of death when he slept either.


End file.
